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why do people always post "cite your evidence.. i 'll wait" but cant seem to bother using GOOGLE??

Here is a 10 year old boy unlocking his moms phone https://www.wired.com/story/10...

here is a mask unlocking a phone https://www.macrumors.com/2017...

here is the face ID not working for apples own demo https://www.theverge.com/circu...

try using google..

And none of your examples demonstrate the AC's specific claim that a photograph can unlock Face ID. So please, by all means, go back to Google and find evidence of that. Once again, I'll wait.

why do people always post "cite your evidence.. i 'll wait" but cant seem to bother using GOOGLE??

Here is a 10 year old boy unlocking his moms phone
https://www.wired.com/story/10...

here is a mask unlocking a phone
https://www.macrumors.com/2017...

here is the face ID not working for apples own demo
https://www.theverge.com/circu...

try using google..

There is a notch in the iPhone X display in order to meet the industrial design goal of an edge-to-edge display. I would have preferred a bezel-less design than some goofy notch, being different isn't always equivalent to being innovative.

Also, your link implies that the cameras use local storage

Not for very long. As soon as a smart criminal or two take the recorder along with the driver's money at the end of a ride, the next generation of such cameras will be hailing "instant uploading of videos to the cloud". And the cabbies will upgrade. They are upgrading already — credit card acceptance by taxis is rising. Though cash still remains an option, that too may be on its way out.

BTW, cities like New York have required data-collection from taxis for years — and now require the same from Uber/Lyft as well. Scandals like this will, no doubt, happen again.

At any rate, I can accept the opposition based on privacy — even if I still think, you are naive, if you think, paying cash in a taxi is substantially beneficial to your privacy. But anything based on the supposed "illegality" of Uber/Lyft is just nonsense.

And taxi companies are taxi companies -- they're not into selling your data to marketeering filth

Unless you turn off and disable your smart phone, when you enter a cab, tracking you personally is already easy — and will become more so, when the new generation of taxi equipment is adopted. To Uber, Lyft, or traditional taxis (as well as to any retailer, policeman, or passer-by) the WiFi and Bluetooth radios in your phone already uniquely identify you... Crap, it is already happening.

May as well ride Lyft and save money...

What I would like is that either 2tier security, where they send me an SMS with a code to congirm

2FA is good, but not via SMS; that isn't secure.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

They better hurry, GM's set to release a driverless car next year. They've even removed the steering wheel; what would typically be considered an Apple move.

And if anything goes wrong with the guidance system, don't worry -- it will simply slow down, pull over, and stop.

And then...

Call AAA?

And if anything goes wrong with the guidance system, don't worry -- it will simply slow down, pull over, and stop.

And then...

Exactly. Instead of coming up with all this gimmicky stuff like voice-controlled thermostats, they should rather focus their energy on making the service available to everyone on Windows 10. MS has an infuriating habit of going overboard with features for en-US and treating the rest of the world as an afterthought.

The current availability of Cortana's services is pitiful. It is constantly hyped about new features that have been added (they even got it to speak Klingon), yet for most of the world, it's a glorified interface to Bing.

Years ago, before Win10 was officially released, and when Cortana was first being developed, I read an interview with one of the high-ups in the Cortana project, who said that they were really keen on making it available in an alpha state to as many users as possible, as the key way to train it properly to work in different regions and cultures is to expose it to as much input as possible. That never happened, and the list of supported countries and regions is the same as when I last looked at it over a year ago.

If Cortana's uptake is struggling, it's purely because they limited the user-base themselves to a market that's already invested in Siri, Alexa and Google Now, instead of entrenching its use in the regions where the other players aren't yet fully available. I also believe that's the real reason that Windows Phone failed as well. They did very badly in the US market because iPhones and Android were both already entrenched, but there were a lot of other regions where WP did really well despite the lack of attention from MS. So naturally, instead of solidifying their market position in those regions, they continued ignoring them and focusing on the US where they had already lost the battle, and eventually lost support from the regions which actually had it. Then Joe Belfiore complains that they had no support from developers, ignoring the fact that there's a huge number of developers outside of the US who were hesitant to invest in a platform that MS themselves showed no interest in supporting for their markets.

TL;DR: MS needs to abandon this habit of region-locking features, and then complaining that people aren't supporting or using those features.

"It may have had it's own thrusters that failed to operate after separation from the rocket"

Except that Northrop Grumman provided its own payload adapter for this mission and wasn't SpaceX's design, nor their responsibility.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/...
"So what actually happened? No one is saying for certain, but there are a couple scenarios in which the Falcon 9 could have performed as it was supposed to and the spacecraft didnâ(TM)t deploy correctly. Typically, SpaceX uses its own hardware on top of its rocket to send a satellite into orbit, what is known as a payload adapter. Itâ(TM)s an apparatus that physically separates the satellite from the upper part of the rocket and sends it into orbit. However, a previous report from Wired noted that Northrop Grumman provided its own payload adapter for this mission. And if that payload adapter failed, it would have left the satellite still attached to the upper portion of the rocket. Thatâ(TM)s certainly a mission failure, but it wouldnâ(TM)t necessarily be the fault of the Falcon 9."

It doesn't matter, initial reports are that it's the Spectre patches that are causing the most system slowdown.

That affects AMD, too. :-)

eg. https://www.theverge.com/2018/...

over the previous broadband figure (10Mbps, IIRC)

No it was 4 Mbps, as the parent said. (link) He was right about that part.

I feel that the previous two Nintendo consoles (the Wii and Wii-U) are also suitable for your list

Not once Nintendo shuts down Wii Shop Channel at the end of this year. After that point, the YouTube, Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix clients for Wii will no longer be available to download, and server-side protocol changes may cause previously downloaded clients to cease to function.

Just see who Tay follows on Twitter.

'broadband' definitions should only ever escalate

10Mbps is indeed a significant escalation from the 4MBps that was in place a mere 3 years ago. Wheeler jacked it way too far too fast to serve his political purpose of declaring a scarcity of "broadband" coverage.

To look at a 150% increase from 2015 as "regressive" is about the same as politicians wailing about "spending cuts" when what they really mean is that the spending increase didn't end up being as large as they wanted.

So your either outright lying or the most ill informed apple shill on here. It started with 10.2.1

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/20/16800058/apple-iphone-slow-fix-battery-life-capacity

Read the second paragraph; educate yourself before yelling at others who are obviously more informed than you.

I figured it was the FUD from possible spying.
It felt like they slipped at the starting line and just couldn't catch up after that.

Up until the recent consumer push for wireless earbuds and bluetooth devices, hearing aids were a small market with small R&D budgets, proportionately. They still beat most bluetooth devices on longevity and size though. The question is, have they been gouging prices or are they reasonable for their particular market and the features they offer.

As for your idea, depends on what kind of patent portfolios you'd have to work around most likely, as the hearing aid mfgs. aren't going to just go away. Also too cheaply sourced earbuds can have distorted and uneven sound.

It seems Bose has something close to what you're looking for: The Verge but they're not exactly fit in your ear sized.

There's a component which I believe is missing from this story: Apple purchased PrimeSense back in 2013, which is the company which used to license the Kinect sensor array technology to Microsoft. Apple is now using the same patented tech in their FaceID system on the iPhone X.

Those are the facts; now on to the speculation: I would expect the licenses which previously covered the Kinect have since expired, and the two companies have been unable to negotiate mutually beneficial license terms, going forward. (Or to put it more bluntly: Apple probably just told Microsoft to kindly shove it.) Further, Microsoft no doubt knew this was coming well before now, so Microsoft has probably spent the past several years investigating whether or not it could forge a way ahead for the Kinect which does not rely upon the PrimeSense patents... and this new information seems to imply that they never found one.

They will NOT. I went in already for mine and they said I could not get a battery for $29 price because mine past a 1 Minute test they âoesaidâ the did on my phone. When I couldnâ(TM)t understand this answer they gave me Appleâ(TM)s 1-800 number and a VERY rude supervisor named Audrey at this number said she looked up my visit to the Apple store and saw the test results and that they were correct in saying Apple will not honor that price to me. They wouldnâ(TM)t even give my phone a try to see how crappy it is. I literally lay it down and wait for things to load as it spins and spins. My phone also randomly every single day will not respond to the touch screen. Apparently know as âoeTouch diseaseâ. They said they didnâ(TM)t know of that and wanted to replace my screen for $189. I asked them (store & supervisor on phone)to google Apples letter they had published about this issue saying replacing the screen would NOT help and neither of them would do so. Apple is full of crap and ripping off millions of people. #stopappleslies #appleisrippingusoff

You misunderstood the time line and now you are complaining? They will NOT do it now because it is not the time. If you carefully read the blog posted on ./ last Friday, you would have known that the reduced price will start from late January 2018, not now. Also, others who side with the AC parent didn't carefully read anything as well. I guess it is typical slashdoters these days.

Apple says in its letter that batteries are “consumable components,” and is offering anyone with an iPhone 6 or later a battery replacement for $29 starting in late January through December 2018 - a discount of $50 from the usual replacement cost.

It's only a matter of time. Besides sperm, we serve no purpose.

By that logic, women will serve no purpose either, given artificially created eggs (which the article suggests they are just as close to replicating as sperm) and an artificial womb, which is much further along.

Of course women will still serve a purpose! How else will the dishes and laundry get done? /s

Robots

It's only a matter of time.
Besides sperm, we serve no purpose.

By that logic, women will serve no purpose either, given artificially created eggs (which the article suggests they are just as close to replicating as sperm) and an artificial womb, which is much further along.

Of course women will still serve a purpose! How else will the dishes and laundry get done? /s

It's only a matter of time.
Besides sperm, we serve no purpose.

By that logic, women will serve no purpose either, given artificially created eggs (which the article suggests they are just as close to replicating as sperm) and an artificial womb, which is much further along.

... as a monitor. Because no videos will be in 8K!

You have not been keeping up with technology. Tokyo Olympics in 8K resolution. There are plenty of other references for 8K if you care to look.

To be fair I will concede that 8K has very little content available at the moment but then again 4K when it first came out also had little content. Even 1080p content became commercially viable when Bluray (yes I do know about HD-DVD) became the industry standard. Currently in order of the most content for media is DVD followed by HD Bluray (ie. 1080p) then UHD Bluray (ie. 4K).

BTW. Streaming is by far the largest means of display content and in the future (eg. 5, 10, 20?? years) physical media will die out.

We have no idea how much they will make (a word usually synonymous with "profit") or even whether they will make anything at all on the deal given how expensive, and even risky, the tech is to develop and produce. Only time will tell.

Why wouldn't Samsung not make a huge profit? The technology and manufacturing process are not risky, since they've been doing this for many years at high volume. They are also the dominant supplier, so they would be hugely inept to not negotiate a deal that guarantees huge profits. At worst, they could walk away from any deal and actually better compete with Apple in the high-end smartphone market.

Based on the supposedly reliable Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is paying Samsung $120-$130 per OLED screen and is urgently trying to find a second source for OLED screens to diminish Samsung's strong current negotiating position. Hence, Apple's huge $2 billion investment in LG.

Also, according to this article, Samsung OLED operating margins are 12% to 22%, which would put the profit on $22 billion at around 2.5 to 5 billion dollars.

Democrats REALLY want the Federal Government to gain control of the Internet.

Net Neutrality is a backdoor to let their SJW insanity control the Internet.

I am not, nor have I ever been a Democrat. You need to stop spreading the word of Comcast, Verizon and AT&T, because that's where the money against net neutrality is coming from. Don't believe it, then believe the links below. This is all about lobbying money into the Republican party, much like the Democrats are beholden to trial lawyers and Hollywood.

https://www.opensecrets.org/ne...
https://www.politico.com/story...
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

This is nothing more that lip service trying to appease public rage, knowing full well citizens have less attention span than a 2 year old. They know Humpty-Trumpty will perform some even more egregious act, diverting attention and none of them will have to give back the $101 Million our "representatives" pocketed from the communications cabal.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...
Bottom line is the leaches and oligarchy want NN dead, it will stay dead because we the people no longer matter.

I'm curious. When was being a lobbyist treated as treason (a crime defined in the Constitution)?

Quite the contrary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

This is just one of the things that Madison, and the court, have gotten wrong. The forces do not, in fact, tend to balance out in time because Madison had no concept of the degree of accumulation of wealth that would occur over the next two centuries and how much this would lead to a small oligarchy controlling immense resources and correspondingly acting as a superselector for the actual private citizen's choices. Shockingly, the courts have even recognized corporations themselves as having many of the rights of private citizens, in particular the "right" to petition the government via lobbying. In this way, the entire concept of democracy (republican or not) is subverted, as in the actual constitution corporations are NOT recognized as political entities -- all political power ultimately devolves to we, the people, the citizen. A corporation is not a citizen, nor is it a democracy.

Sadly, the only way we can get out of this at this point is EITHER having a congress that passes laws that muzzle lobbying -- personally I'd prohibit ALL lobbying, as the baby drowned long ago and all that is left is the sewer sludge swamp water of extremists on all sides, fueled by the oligarchs who maintain power as long as they keep wethepeople too distracted to care and too stupid to want to. Then we'd have to have a court that would actually consider the point that corporations are NOT citizens and do NOT have a right to "freedom of speech" -- only individual persons (owners or employees alike!) do, and only to the extent that they are willing to expend their own personal resources on it. OR we'd have to pass an amendment to the constitution specifically limiting the power of corporate entities to participate in or influence government decision making. Frankly I'd prefer the latter, but it will probably require the second American revolution to bring it about.

In the meantime, much as I appreciate the sentiment that corporate lobbying SHOULD be, well, not "treason" but a pretty serious crime, the lobbying part per se is the tip of the iceberg. I could even live with it as long as the real problem is repaired.

That is the simple fact illustrated here: https://www.opensecrets.org/ne...
and here: https://www.opensecrets.org/ne...

Scroll down to the graphic detailing PAC contributions. To put that graphic in perspective, one has to look at the numbers:
https://www.opensecrets.org/or...
and
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

Opensecrets (among other places) follows this all the way down to the following brutal fact. It costs an average of around 11 million dollars to run for the Senate. It costs almost 2 million dollars to run for the House. It costs well over 100 million dollars to run for President. Actual donations from private citizens making less than $200,000/year constitute about 6 or 7 PERCENT of this. Well over 90% of the cost of running for office comes not from We, The People, but from corporations, filtered through PACs and the parties themselves, and those corporations are controlled by a tiny handful of the world's wealthiest people.

Nothing illustrates the corruption more clearly than the fact that many -- arguably most -- of the PACs contribute roughly equal amounts to Republicans AND Democrats running against each other. They don't care who wins, regardless of their stated position on whatever "issue" the PAC is supposed to give a shit about.

From the story summary: "... the culprit is LinkedIn."

From the parent comment: "LinkedIn is a socially malignant business..."

LinkedIn is no longer LinkedIn. It is now Microsoft: "LinkedIn notifications directly within Windows 10".

Windows 10 is now gathering information for LinkedIn. The worst spyware ever made has become worse!

Except Trump didn't nominate him Obama did.

Obama didn't nominate Pai as FCC chairman, he nominated him as an FCC commissioner, one of two minority-party members traditionally appointed. Trump nominated Pai to be FCC chairman with the understanding that Pai would eliminate the Net Neutrality rules. As long as you're so concerned about facts, you should try to at least get them right.

Trump nominated Pai as chairman on the day after he was inaugurated. He nominated him to a second five-year term in March of 2017.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

Paperclips... Lots and lots of paperclips.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/...

Just be aware that any existing competing ISP will sue you (or worse) if you try.

Yes, the cabal of major ISPs (AT&T/Comcast/Verizon) are prohibited from carving the internet into a cable like system with Net Neutrality, preventing them from changing you by the "station", or in this case, site. Additionally, they want be able to develop "profiles" of your surfing habits and sell them to marketers without your knowledge or permission.
Repealing NN is an estimated $8B dollar gimme to the cabal.
To achieve their aim, they have peppered congress with $101M in gravy to ensure their victory.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...
Of course, unlike cable providers, ISP's do not have to license or bid for content for rebroadcast. We as end users are already paying for content (netflix/prime/hulu subscriptions) and for the connections. Remember the definition of ISP (Internet Service Provider?), Despite record profits, that model isn't good enough for them:
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
No matter what the people think, or who says it, NN will be repealed. may god have mercy on their souls and our check books.

T-Mobile's Binge On is relatively non-problematic because it singles out an entire class of content (streaming video), not a single provider of content.

Not true

https://www.theverge.com/2015/...

Binge On, though consumer friendly, is sure to be met with criticism. Prioritizing certain companies' services over others' to entice and retain customers -- a practice known as zero-rating -- may be anti-competitive in nature, leading to the stifling of smaller, less popular services that contribute to a smartphone owner's data plan.

The logic is that users of Pono's music service may flock to Spotify and the products of companies who strike deals with T-Mobile. Protecting the internet from this type of prioritization is part of the core pillar of net neutrality that asserts all internet traffic should be treated equal. Of course, it's less insidious than the implementation of fast lanes and throttling customers' data speeds. But zero-rating is a murky gray area without sound legal footing in the eyes of regulators.

It meant that T Mobile could decide who got zero rated and who didn't and could demand payment from services in order to get zero rate. Which is not Net Neutrality. And in fact the fear of having to pay to be zero rated seems to be the reason Google, Facebook and the like were pro Net Neutrality. They certainly don't seem to believe in it in other situations.

I blame tech bloggers myself. I like the S5 because it had a removable battery. Tech bloggers complained the back looked like a band aid and the design 'felt cheap'.

Then they released the S6 which had no removable battery and no SD card. Basically they were copying Apple. And the tech bloggers gave it points for improvement

https://www.theverge.com/2015/...

It's not okay to make a cheap-looking phone anymore.

I'm surprised he didn't say "it's, like, totally problematic to make a cheap looking phone"

Now that Apple is finally making big phones, and even the cheapest Android phones feel nice, we all expect more from Samsung - and rightly so. A flagship phone has to be great or it's going to get laughed out of the room. If the Galaxy S6 was another plasticky, boring phone like last year's Galaxy S5 or if it merely introduced a few hardware tricks, it would have gotten laughed out of the entire neighborhood.

There is a version of the phone with a hardware trick, the Galaxy S6 Edge with a curved display. But that's a distraction; the real story is that Samsung needed to learn that hardware prowess and software features are tools you use to build something great, not ends in themselves. Most Galaxy phones are uninspired compilations of spec lists. For the S6, Samsung to needed to find inspiration, and it did: in Apple.

The Galaxy S6 is what happens when Samsung doesn't try to copy Apple's phones, but instead finally tries to copy Apple's product philosophy.

The first thing to know about the S6 is that it doesn't feel much like other Samsung phones. Instead of a plastic or faux-leather back, it's glass on the front and the back with metal around the rim. We've seen other phones do this, but none have done it so well. The Galaxy S6 looks great and feels even better.

The edges are subtly textured from flat to curved in all the right spots. The seams between the glass and the metal are nigh-microscopic, and the whole thing just feels fantastic. It weighs just a hair more than an iPhone 6, and it's slightly bigger as well. But I actually find it easier to hold and to reach the far corners because the glass is less likely to slip than the iPhone's metal finish. It glides into a pocket and stays in my hand.

If you wanted to go hunting for problems, you could find them. Maybe the Gorilla Glass 4 won't hold up to drops or could be prone to scratching (neither has been the case for me so far). The camera bump on the back is an overly large wart. That's about it, from a straight physical design perspective. And in both cases, I'm simply not worried about it.

Then there's the elephant in the room: it really does remind you of the iPhone. This isn't a straight rip, of course. From the front, it's the spitting image of the Galaxy S5. The back is glass, and the curves fit Samsung's traditional Galaxy shape instead of iPhone's rounded rectangle. But take a look at the bottom of each phone: You'll find the same perfectly machined holes and ports in basically identical spots. Samsung also dropped the removable battery, the microSD storage expansion, and even the waterproofing, all in the name of design.

THE GALAXY S6 LOOKS GREAT AND FEELS EVEN BETTER

This comparison is the makings of an epic argument between partisans of both companies (and I'm sure you will get a taste of that if you read the comments below). But I really don't care if Samsung copied any particular iPhone design element or not. What I care about is that it really does seem like Samsung finally got around to copying the most important thing: a fully conceived, well-executed design.

It's actually remarkable to see a Samsung device where design feels like it was a consideration from the start, not something applied only after the component list was compiled. Go ahead and have your battles about which is better, who copied who, and even whether it's worth los

I've heard many times that this war was over.... we'll see.

No end in sight

over a year ago I tried streaming Prime through the browser and casting that to my Chromecast. It didn't work too well back then.

We a similar pissing match with AppleTV and Prime streaming. There was a "promise" that they'd have it working before the end of 2017, but there's no end in sight.

And there'll be another one as Google tries to force everybody to use video codecs it effectively controls, and refuses to use the ISO standard that device manufacturers agreed to use and support. (The alternative being any company using Google's codecs has to give up their ability to enforce their own patent rights).

So yeah, companies saying "I'm willing to fuck my own customers to get your company to do my company's bidding."

I completely disagree. The sensor is essentially a miniature lidar array with functionality to around 5 feet. The potential to change how we use our phones could be revolutionary ; scan favorite objects and have them appear in virtual reality environments like games, or send them to your 3-d printer. It goes far beyond turning your face into a talking poop Just implement it as an opt-in like everything else.

Elon Musk told us he was sending a car to space, then said he totally made it up

He's now saying he "totally made that up".

Of course, this may be a double-fake. Just because he made it up doesn't mean he isn't doing it anyway.

Elon Musk admits he made up the story about launching a roadster to mars.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

Try again: https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

Regardless how you look at Uber they are criminals, they are screwing employees, they are screwing customers, they are screwing authorities and more!

I will never use Uber even if they are the last company on Earth.

IBM used to be a byword for proprietary lock in. Then PC clones took over and IBM's attempt at moving people from them to PS/2s, MCA and OS/2 failed.

And then IBM changed to be a proponent of open systems, The Cloud and so on.

Of course The Cloud gives another kind of lock in because the company that controls your cloud accounts controls all your data. For a long time Google kept people from noticing this because your Gmail data limit grew with time. Now it's stopped growing and because people don't delete their emails in Gmail, eventually they'll need to start paying. And Google have all your data, which means they can monetize it.

Microsoft could offer Office on iOS, Android and Chromebooks and then do what Google did. MS Office after all still has a certain amount of cachet in the mind of the general public.

Interesting thing is their pricing model

https://www.theverge.com/2016/...

Microsoft has offered Office free to Android and iOS devices for two years now, with some restrictions for larger devices. Now that Chromebooks are starting to get access to Android apps, those same restrictions will apply for Google's laptops. Just like the iPad Pro, Chromebooks with a screen larger than 10.1 inches will not be able to access Microsoft Office editing free of charge.

This restriction includes most Chromebooks on the market, and it's only devices like ASUS' Chromebook Flip (10.1-inch display) that will be able to use Microsoft Office free of charge. "Google Play on Chrome OS is in beta, we are partnering with Google to deliver the best experience for Chromebook users and plan to make the apps available on all compatible devices by general availability," explains a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to 9to5Google. "On devices larger than 10.1 inches, an Office 365 subscription is required to unlock the ability to create, edit, or print documents."

This isn't a new strategy or policy, and Microsoft isn't unfairly targeting Chromebooks. The software giant revealed last year that it would classify a machine with a 10.1-inch display or below as a "true mobile device." Microsoft applied the same rules to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, while the smaller iPad Pro still retains free access to Microsoft Office. Microsoft currently offers individual Office 365 Personal subscriptions for $6.99 per month, or $69.99 a year.

I.e. it's free on cheap device. It's $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year on expensive ones. Of course in the long run more devices will have screens above 10.1 inches and that means people will need to pay. It's smart, but it's a trap.

Being forced to leave your home and your family and live in a forced labor camp in exceptionally cold temperatures with poor medical care

That's not what happened to Sakharov though. He was sent into internal exile in Gorky and his phone was taken away. He didn't get sent to a labour camp. They wanted to move him out of the Overton Window, but were a bit more subtle about it than they were in the 30's.

I do acknowledge that in theory there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in terms of discovering that the content is filtered in the first place, but in practice, any action that prevents people from hearing about other social networks would be a *blatant* anti-trust violation, which is already solidly covered by existing laws.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

https://www.whaleoil.co.nz/201...

Antitrust only kicks in if FB is declared a monopoly, which it has not been.

As the left wing Guardian observed

https://www.theguardian.com/co...

"Don't you know what Facebook is?" a woman said. No interrobang, you notice. It wasn't a rebuke. It was worse than that - she was trying to be kind. It was as if I'd confided in her about my literacy problems or asked her to feel a lump. I can't forgive Facebook for that pang of humiliation and consequently have never signed up - which I'm perfectly happy about and my friends even happier because it's a great way for them not to invite me to parties. I'd only eat all the crisps and ask stupid questions anyway.

But is this a sustainable position? Is joining Facebook becoming mandatory if you wish to remain part of the modern world? I'm sure it feels like that for teenagers and I think it probably does for most people in their 20s. I know I'm not on the technological cutting edge - I don't want to be - but neither do I want to be a modern-day equivalent of those who refused to have TVs in the 80s, a self-absorbed, neo-Amish anachronism flinging a judgmental glance behind me as I stomp out of society in a strop.

Initially, I assumed Facebook was just a fad like its predecessors and, when Twitter became popular and fashionable, it seemed that the MySpace trajectory was once again being observed. Having joined Twitter, I smugly waited for Facebook's inevitable demise, congratulating myself for having skipped a whole technological chapter and saved myself a lot of hassle, very much as would have happened with the fax machine if I hadn't made the eccentric last-minute decision to buy one in 1999. Then something nasty and unexpected happened: the zeitgeist left Facebook and yet somehow it survived. It was like the moment in Outbreak when the virus goes airborne.

It gets worse. Facebook is much more than an internet brand that's managing to ride the fad wave. It's becoming a monopoly. I know this because it's been mentioned in The Archers. A trade name in Ambridge! The place where old-school BBC rules about "sticky-backed plastic" and "a proprietary brand of spreadable yeast extract" still obtain to a ludicrous extent. No iPods, Walkmans, BlackBerrys or Kindles are ever mentioned but, in the last few weeks, the programme has started to call Facebook and Twitter by name. RIP Bebo. You only ever existed to demonstrate that "other social networking sites are available". Now there might as well not be. Everyone else is on Facebook and, if you update your status in the forest and there's no one there to read it...

I'm sure Facebook would claim it's not a monopoly - strictly speaking it isn't - but it clearly wants to be and, if there are whole sections of society who feel obliged to sign up in order to be able to communicate with one another, then its dreams a

Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) have spent $572 million on attempts to influence the FCC and other government agencies since 2008.

https://medium.com/theyoungtur...
https://represent.us/action/ho...
https://www.theverge.com/2017/...

Hollywood and others already have the tools to recreate a voice without the person present - saying any word. And Caller ID can be spoofed trivially. ANI cannot as easily, but that also probably wouldn't work for brokers in a company using a multi-line phone system.

If a state or municipality wants to try some socialist project, it is left up to the STATE to decide.

Not for long.

Propaganda isn't the same things as "lie".

Nearly all of the adverts were subjective in their very nature or an appeal to the readers opinions. See https://www.theverge.com/2017/... for some examples.
And even if they were about objective facts, if a foreign power secretly spent a lot of money to endorse one candidate in my country's elections I'd still be worried.

The good news is much like Charlie Rose gets embarrassed off the national stage, hopefully companies that don't take security seriously will be forced into bankruptcy.

Hoping for some unaccountable process to help users is no substitute for software freedom. Hoping is apparently flatly incapable of addressing purposeful choices to not fix remotely-exploitable problems (whether bugs put there by accident or weakening something on purpose like Microsoft did with the Skype protocol to make it easier to spy on Skype users).

Proprietary software is often malware and there are plenty of instances where the proprietor goes unpunished despite years of anti-user aggression (Apple's iTunes being vulnerable for years allowed spying, Microsoft Windows ignored user privacy settings, Google admitted it tracked user location data even when the tracking setting was turned off). Each of these problems and many more could have been fixed for virtually everyone by sufficiently skilled and motivated users if the software involved were free software, but users were not allowed to inspect the software, improve the software, or distribute improved variants to others.

There are no guarantees of program security so a useful perspective focuses on how users can improve the chances they'll get software that does what they want. Hoping for something better is foolish, passive, and completely unnecessary.